When I volunteered to do this review I quickly realized that I was asked to review 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server' and not just 'Red Hat Linux'. Then panic set in. How different was this going to be from regular old Red Hat that I've used and relied on for years? Is this going to be a whole new Red Hat with a whole bunch of advanced features that I wouldn't be able to talk about either because I missed them or because I'm not qualified?

> I can administer machines either way, but there is obviously some demand for the GUI because it seems that everybody includes it.

GUI can become extrememly powerful over directly editting config text files if designed right.

A GUI config application can:

1) check for correct data input
2) limit certain settings when need be
3) allow you to apply the settings much more quickly

A good example, please don't flame me, is IIS. You can in the matter of minute setups: a certificate, multiple virtual directorys, aliasing, filters, permissions all of which validates your settings before they are applied. Now yes, you can do the same with httpd.conf but it would take much longer and you have to be much more careful when applying the settings.